Often enough I'll purchase some beers and sometimes a label will have a short description of the aroma and or taste of the beer. I find many times that the term 'Dank" is used as a description and actually many times I don't find that element at all in the beer described as such. It seems the term has been misused or even over-used to describe a portion of a beer's profile. My studies have shown me essentially 3 basic dank factors: Herbal, Food-Like, and Industrial. Beer Advocates, how do you define the term "Dank"?
Marijuana, piney, herbal, a bit of decay and allium, earthy. Best analog I can think of is the way some of the marshes in SE Virginia smell after a big storm. Most of the swampy odors are washed away, so you can smell all the pine branches and needles that have fallen.
Hops can give off lots of different smells and flavors. Some can be flowery and like perfume, some can be fruity and tropical, some can be earthy, and some just plain smell like weed. To me, "dank" refers to those. To me, simcoe and high levels of CTZ lean in that direction most of the time.
One of the 'challenges' of the word "dank" is that is can be a rather ambiguous term. For some beers "dank" can mean an aroma/flavor reminiscent of marijuana and I am personally not a fan of that smell/flavor. I will sometimes avoid buying a beer that claims "dank" out of this specific concern. Now, for some beers that "dank" can mean a flavor more akin to piney or resin or earthy (or combo of all three) and these sorts of flavors when not too prominent can be appealing to my palate. Cheers!
I don’t have much to add to the prior posts, as their opinions align with mine. That being said, I've noticed the same thing you have and commented about it in this forum. I have no idea why brewers insist on using the term in their beer description or label name, when the beer clearly hasn't an iota of dankness on the nose or in the flavor profile. My guess is they figure the expression isn't well defined, but most get a positive connotation from the term, so why not include it in the beer description. Personally, I will now only order beers self described as dank if I've had them before, or if I'm allowed to try it in advance of purchasing. BTW. Fresh hop season is nearly upon us. If you want to try something dank, come out to the PNW in September or October. You'll have a much deeper understanding of what dankness can mean in a beer. In addition to the characteristics listed above, I've had fh IPA's that smelled of watermelon rind, mustard, roquefort cheese, and even a wild "green" aroma. Cheers!
The word damp entered my lexicon as a descriptor of a basement in an old brick house where earthy moisture is present. (I grew up in a house like that and it had that smell.) So I tend to transfer that smell to beers that are described as dank, and moist earth is probably the single aroma and taste that is common in those beers among the other flavors. I don't like it so I stay away from those beers.
As hop growers have adjusted harvest time to better align with what the market wants, I've found that beers that I used to think of as "dank" are no longer that. I don't get as much dank from Simcoe and Columbus heavy beers as I did 10-15 years ago. Much cleaner aroma/flavors now.
Ever see the movie Silence of The Lambs? Ya know how Catherine Martin was kept in Jame Gumb's basement? I suspect that basement was very dank. Mr. Webster defines dank as unpleasantly moist or wet, and that matches my view: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dank
FWIW, even using marijuana or cannabis as a descriptor now doesn't really work unless you're like me and gave up weed 20 years ago (for the most part, sometimes I get a wild hare and figure "why not?" and then immediately regret it. Too strong now). When buddies smoke up, I abstain, but I still like to smell the bag, and the good stuff you can get from a dispensary now doesn't have much in common with what I was used to smoking back in the day. Much cleaner aroma, more citrus/herbal/spicy than what I would describe as dank.
It's the filthiest sense of the word. Not dank like a moldy basement or the stench of forgotten laundry, but dank like a greenhouse packed with marijuana and citrus rinds, sweating under grow lights and paranoia. Dank means a beer that reeks of sticky green resin. It smells like fresh-cut pine mixed with crushed weed and grapefruit skins that have been sitting in the sun too long. You don't sip a dank IPA. You wrestle with it. You breathe it in like tear gas, then chase it down with blind faith and a half-burned palate. It's bitter. It's loud. The hops don’t just speak, they scream in skunky, herbal tongues. It coats your throat with the kind of oily bitterness that lingers long after reason has left the room. Dank isn't just about flavor. It's a full sensory ambush. A proper dank IPA should smell illegal, taste defiant, and feel like you're drinking something the government tried to classify.
Earthiness covers a wide range of aromas from mushrooms, stale air, wet stone (which depends on the stone, wet limestone smells different than slate), freshly turned earth (again, depends on the makeup), and the wilderness after the rain. Some of these aromas are pleasing, some aren't, and a lot of that has to do with your personal experiences. Proust wrote whole novels about this.
